So as many know, Bret and I have a dog. We love the dog, but the dog has a few issues we are working on, primarily "do not hunt/try to eat cats." This is the preamble to my tale.
A few weeks ago, around the beginning of October, I was out on a walk with the dog in the early hours of the morning. There were a few elderly walkers out and about, a few people walking their dogs, and it was a nice sunny day.
Suddenly, a tiny kitten catches my eye crossing the park path. I love kittens! So does the dog, unfortunately. The dog took off after the kitten, cornered it into a bush, and lots of hissing and barking ensued. Then I grabbed the dog round the middle and the cat ran up the nearest tree. I was disappointed with the dog, worried about the cat, and out of breath. I ran home with the dog, put him in his enclosure, and sprinted back to the park with the tree.
The poor little kitten looked down at me from the highest branch of the tree, which was not really a big tree, but definitely 2-3 times taller than myself. The kitten meowed and meowed, and tried to find it's way out of the tree by going...up higher.
I felt really guilty that my dog chased the dog up the tree, when it could have been having a perfectly fine day without the pair of us, but now he was stuck and making woeful sounds. I couldn't just leave him there! I tried to climb the tree but I didn't have proper shoes for the task, and was attracting attention from the elderly park walkers. "What are you doing there?" asked a lady with one of those walkers with a basket that you can roll your stuff around in. "Up there. cat. small cat!" I said in my terrible Japanese. "But you have a dog, not a cat!" she said. "I know", I said, "but there's a cat, a little cat, up there!" and just as I said it he started to meow again. "Ahhh" she said, "that's difficult. Here, try these to get him down." She reached into her walker basket and took out some cookies. I thanked her for the cookies and she continued on her walk.
I tried to crinkle the cookie wrappers to entice the kitten to go downwards, but he just looked at me and kept meowing. He was so cute with his big green eyes and his little white paws are gripping the branches for dear life. My rescue was not working.
I ran back to the house, grabbed a step ladder and woke up Bret. He was not happy about being woken up, but he loves kittens too, so he came out. As Bret climbed the tree, I ate cookies the lady gave me and shouted instructions. Finally Bret was victorious, and he handed me a bewildered looking tiny kitten, who started purring immediately. He was so so so so so so cute.
But then what? I cannot keep a kitten with a cat-eating dog. Besides having a dog has put plenty enough on my plate for me to deal with, what with travelling and all, finding someone to care for the dog is already a challenge.
My vet occasionally showcases kittens who are looking for "parents" so we decided the best thing to do was to take the kitten to the vet in hopes that he could help us find a home for the cute little guy. We went to the vet, and as we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a very disappointing sight: Five kittens were already outside the clinic with a sign above the cage "looking for parents." Oh well, let's just go talk to the vet, I thought. Inside the clinic there were five more kittens. The vet said he could take the kitten in a week or so, and to come back then for the showcase. He also put flea medication on the kitten for free. He's the nicest guy in the world. Bret and I want to buy him a trophy.
That morning, Bret and I had a dental appointment, and were very short on time. We had to go to the dentist straightaway, so we left the kitten in the car and went in. I even went in to check on the kitten a few times while we were in the waiting room. When we came back out after our appointments, the kitten was gone.
I don't know what was wrong with me that day, but the sight of the empty car and the knowledge that I could have done a good deed for a kitten but instead he escaped through a crack in the window to almost certain death was too much for me. I was so so so upset. I felt like I was re-living every crappy thing that has happened to me over the last year, and that the world was crap and just one bad experience after the next. I was so disappointed in myself and with my life in general. I try to be positive, but sometimes I feel like even when I try to be a good person(like, the BEST, NICEST person I can be all the time!!!), bad things happen to me for no reason, and that sucks. Sorry for the long side tangent, but it is necessary to explain how low I felt at that moment.
Bret and I went to get some gelato, which cheered me up slightly, and I resigned myself to my non-rescued-kitten fate. Oh well, at least he was de-flead, right?
After gelato, Bret wanted to go to the doctor for his back. He goes about 3-5 times a week to use the back straightening machine thingy. Anyways. I wait for Bret in the car and play around on his phone. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I hear a noise. It sounded like something outside the car, or maybe underneath it. A high pitched, yet faint noise. I stepped out, circled the car, scratched my head, got back in the car, and went back to the phone. A couple of minutes later I heard it again. Was I going crazy? It was so faint, and I was so frazzled after the mornings ordeal, I felt like I was hearing things. Long story short, I heard the noise again, clearer than before, and this time I searched every inch of the car. Nothing. Then I looked into the tiny gap under our car's backseat...and there he was.
I was so happy to see him. It was like a sign that not everything in life goes wrong. Sometimes you do win!
But...as we drove home with the little kitten curled up and sleeping on my arm, it did weigh on me that we needed to do something. We couldn't keep him and we needed to help our vet find a home for him.
I took pictures of the kitten straightaway, and printed tons of fliers with all the relevant information on them thanks to help from my friend Wakako. I then put the posters pretty much everywhere I thought they would be seen around town. Laundromats, grocery stores, the gelato place, love crepe, everywhere I could think of. But the phone was not ringing. You pretty much have a better chance of being struck by lightening than finding a home for a cat without a pedigree round these parts.
The week passed and we brought the kitten to our vet to be showcased. A few more days went by and we got a phone call! I was so excited. The woman had a kitten of her own, a girl kitten, and wanted to get her a friend. Boy and girl cats tend to get along better in the long run, so I was very excited at the prospect of my kitten being homed with that woman. I arranged to meet her at the vet's clinic with a bag full of cat food, litter, and toys.
It did not go well. The woman was frigidly unfriendly and didn't smile or look at me as I met her at the entrance. Upon seeing the kitten she exclaimed, "Oh! ....he's big!" Not exactly what I thought I would be hearing, but whatever. She had brought her kitten with her as well, and put her in a large cage with my kitten, as she, the vet, and I watched. Cuteness ensued and I knew it would be a good match. They reacted very calmly to each other, and my kitten took a few playful swipes at the air in front of the girl kitten, but they were both in a steel cage, so it wasn't exactly the best situation for either of them to relax and play.The lady continued to look...for lack of a better word dim. She raised some questions/objections, but the vet answered her questions and dispelled her concerns calmly and intelligently. This lady clearly knew nothing about cats, but whatever, I was not in the position to be choosy. She already had a kitten and they could more or less take care of themselves so long as she fed them. However, she only agreed to take him for a one week trial to see if everything would work out. Both the vet and I were confident it would be fine. The kittens were the same age and size and didn't seem to object to one another. I gave her the bag with all the cat stuff that I had bought, and thanked her.
Two days later we got a call from the vet. That dumb B brought my kitten back, conveniently "forgetting" to bring back any of his food or toys. What a B.
But no matter! Sure she had taken up the remaining precious days of his showcase at the vet, but the vet said he would take him again in a week. I took the kitten back home, re-bought toys, food and litter and gave him lots of cuddles to re cooperate from being shifted around so much.
After the weekend, we were getting a lot of weird calls. We would answer, but there would be only be dead air and then they'd hang up. Weird. Weird, but also a little to-be-expected considering I've been putting up posters a little bit "unsolicitedly" all over town...ANYWAYS turns out, there was a person at the end of that dead air, and, as it was recounted to me, it belonged to someone who was either very young, very old, or....very mentally challenged.
Guess who lucky me ended up meeting at my vet's office later that same afternoon? I was desperate to get rid of the kitten and thought I could just give him/her a chance (yes, there was a question). I was also relying on the vet to be an intermediary who would decide if this person was mentally competent enough to take the cat. Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnfortunately for me, the vet thought that I was meeting with this person at his office because they were a friend or aquaintance of mine. A misconception that was only corrected after I had packed my poor kitten away in a box, that was then placed in the adopter's rickety bicycle,and given away ANOTHER round of toys, catfood, and litter and watched him/her cycle away. Nevertheless, all we could do was shrug. We had the contact info of the person, so all we could do was hope for the best.
I felt sad and scared. Definitely not how I thought I would feel when I set out to complete this challenging task. This was a good, friendly, kitten. He was MY kitten and he was super adorable. He deserved a good home. Would he/she be a normal kind of special or like "Lenny with the rabbits" ala Mice and Men special? I had no idea, and I guess I didn't want to know.
I talked it over with some friends at dinner and they assured me I was worrying too much. Then I reassured myself some more and felt a little better. After all, plenty of handicapable people own pets and they're just fine, right? right???
not 24 hours later, I would approximate about 20 hours later, Bret gets ANOTHER call.
Apparently, after many confusing conversations in Japanese with several people, including our poor vet, this is what we understand had happened:
The special man had crashed his bicycle with my kitten in the basket on his way home. The kitten had escaped and the man had reported the incident to the vet. This is what "was reported" but I'm not entirely sure a Lenny situation didn't occur with the kitten running away as a result. The kitten was then found in a neighboring park by a group of children, and brought back to the vet's office.
We spoke to our vet just now and he assured us that after the multiple fiascos we no longer had to worry about the kitten and that he would take care of re-homing and everything for us.
So there you have it. I set out to do a good deed, numerous strange things transpired, and now I'm inconveniencing the nicest vet in Japan.
Still hoping for a good end to this sordid tale...
**just some disclaimers/clarifications/subtext here***
1. there are no humane societies in japan, just a couple of shelters run by non-japanese that are already overcrowded and under-resourced. They are also very far from where I live.
2. Shikoku, where I live in Japan, is kind of like the Arkansas of Japan. Too few people know/care/bother to spay and neuter and as a result, every spring and fall there are far too many kittens, though most of them are born outdoors or feral and do not like people.
3. In pet stores, people frequently pay crazy amounts of money, upwards of a thousand dollars to purchase pure bred varieties of cats
4. It is very difficult to catch kittens, so this was a very rare case
A few weeks ago, around the beginning of October, I was out on a walk with the dog in the early hours of the morning. There were a few elderly walkers out and about, a few people walking their dogs, and it was a nice sunny day.
The wild dingo stalks his prey
The poor little kitten looked down at me from the highest branch of the tree, which was not really a big tree, but definitely 2-3 times taller than myself. The kitten meowed and meowed, and tried to find it's way out of the tree by going...up higher.
I felt really guilty that my dog chased the dog up the tree, when it could have been having a perfectly fine day without the pair of us, but now he was stuck and making woeful sounds. I couldn't just leave him there! I tried to climb the tree but I didn't have proper shoes for the task, and was attracting attention from the elderly park walkers. "What are you doing there?" asked a lady with one of those walkers with a basket that you can roll your stuff around in. "Up there. cat. small cat!" I said in my terrible Japanese. "But you have a dog, not a cat!" she said. "I know", I said, "but there's a cat, a little cat, up there!" and just as I said it he started to meow again. "Ahhh" she said, "that's difficult. Here, try these to get him down." She reached into her walker basket and took out some cookies. I thanked her for the cookies and she continued on her walk.
Pretty much what he looked like in the tree, but smaller and cuter. d'awwww
I ran back to the house, grabbed a step ladder and woke up Bret. He was not happy about being woken up, but he loves kittens too, so he came out. As Bret climbed the tree, I ate cookies the lady gave me and shouted instructions. Finally Bret was victorious, and he handed me a bewildered looking tiny kitten, who started purring immediately. He was so so so so so so cute.
But then what? I cannot keep a kitten with a cat-eating dog. Besides having a dog has put plenty enough on my plate for me to deal with, what with travelling and all, finding someone to care for the dog is already a challenge.
My vet occasionally showcases kittens who are looking for "parents" so we decided the best thing to do was to take the kitten to the vet in hopes that he could help us find a home for the cute little guy. We went to the vet, and as we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a very disappointing sight: Five kittens were already outside the clinic with a sign above the cage "looking for parents." Oh well, let's just go talk to the vet, I thought. Inside the clinic there were five more kittens. The vet said he could take the kitten in a week or so, and to come back then for the showcase. He also put flea medication on the kitten for free. He's the nicest guy in the world. Bret and I want to buy him a trophy.
He appreciates a good ride in the car
I don't know what was wrong with me that day, but the sight of the empty car and the knowledge that I could have done a good deed for a kitten but instead he escaped through a crack in the window to almost certain death was too much for me. I was so so so upset. I felt like I was re-living every crappy thing that has happened to me over the last year, and that the world was crap and just one bad experience after the next. I was so disappointed in myself and with my life in general. I try to be positive, but sometimes I feel like even when I try to be a good person(like, the BEST, NICEST person I can be all the time!!!), bad things happen to me for no reason, and that sucks. Sorry for the long side tangent, but it is necessary to explain how low I felt at that moment.
Bret and I went to get some gelato, which cheered me up slightly, and I resigned myself to my non-rescued-kitten fate. Oh well, at least he was de-flead, right?
Some things, even gelato can't fix
After gelato, Bret wanted to go to the doctor for his back. He goes about 3-5 times a week to use the back straightening machine thingy. Anyways. I wait for Bret in the car and play around on his phone. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I hear a noise. It sounded like something outside the car, or maybe underneath it. A high pitched, yet faint noise. I stepped out, circled the car, scratched my head, got back in the car, and went back to the phone. A couple of minutes later I heard it again. Was I going crazy? It was so faint, and I was so frazzled after the mornings ordeal, I felt like I was hearing things. Long story short, I heard the noise again, clearer than before, and this time I searched every inch of the car. Nothing. Then I looked into the tiny gap under our car's backseat...and there he was.
I was so happy to see him. It was like a sign that not everything in life goes wrong. Sometimes you do win!
But...as we drove home with the little kitten curled up and sleeping on my arm, it did weigh on me that we needed to do something. We couldn't keep him and we needed to help our vet find a home for him.
I took pictures of the kitten straightaway, and printed tons of fliers with all the relevant information on them thanks to help from my friend Wakako. I then put the posters pretty much everywhere I thought they would be seen around town. Laundromats, grocery stores, the gelato place, love crepe, everywhere I could think of. But the phone was not ringing. You pretty much have a better chance of being struck by lightening than finding a home for a cat without a pedigree round these parts.
The week passed and we brought the kitten to our vet to be showcased. A few more days went by and we got a phone call! I was so excited. The woman had a kitten of her own, a girl kitten, and wanted to get her a friend. Boy and girl cats tend to get along better in the long run, so I was very excited at the prospect of my kitten being homed with that woman. I arranged to meet her at the vet's clinic with a bag full of cat food, litter, and toys.
It did not go well. The woman was frigidly unfriendly and didn't smile or look at me as I met her at the entrance. Upon seeing the kitten she exclaimed, "Oh! ....he's big!" Not exactly what I thought I would be hearing, but whatever. She had brought her kitten with her as well, and put her in a large cage with my kitten, as she, the vet, and I watched. Cuteness ensued and I knew it would be a good match. They reacted very calmly to each other, and my kitten took a few playful swipes at the air in front of the girl kitten, but they were both in a steel cage, so it wasn't exactly the best situation for either of them to relax and play.The lady continued to look...for lack of a better word dim. She raised some questions/objections, but the vet answered her questions and dispelled her concerns calmly and intelligently. This lady clearly knew nothing about cats, but whatever, I was not in the position to be choosy. She already had a kitten and they could more or less take care of themselves so long as she fed them. However, she only agreed to take him for a one week trial to see if everything would work out. Both the vet and I were confident it would be fine. The kittens were the same age and size and didn't seem to object to one another. I gave her the bag with all the cat stuff that I had bought, and thanked her.
Two days later we got a call from the vet. That dumb B brought my kitten back, conveniently "forgetting" to bring back any of his food or toys. What a B.
Who could say no to this adorable kitten? a B, that's who.
But no matter! Sure she had taken up the remaining precious days of his showcase at the vet, but the vet said he would take him again in a week. I took the kitten back home, re-bought toys, food and litter and gave him lots of cuddles to re cooperate from being shifted around so much.
After the weekend, we were getting a lot of weird calls. We would answer, but there would be only be dead air and then they'd hang up. Weird. Weird, but also a little to-be-expected considering I've been putting up posters a little bit "unsolicitedly" all over town...ANYWAYS turns out, there was a person at the end of that dead air, and, as it was recounted to me, it belonged to someone who was either very young, very old, or....very mentally challenged.
Guess who lucky me ended up meeting at my vet's office later that same afternoon? I was desperate to get rid of the kitten and thought I could just give him/her a chance (yes, there was a question). I was also relying on the vet to be an intermediary who would decide if this person was mentally competent enough to take the cat. Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnfortunately for me, the vet thought that I was meeting with this person at his office because they were a friend or aquaintance of mine. A misconception that was only corrected after I had packed my poor kitten away in a box, that was then placed in the adopter's rickety bicycle,and given away ANOTHER round of toys, catfood, and litter and watched him/her cycle away. Nevertheless, all we could do was shrug. We had the contact info of the person, so all we could do was hope for the best.
I felt sad and scared. Definitely not how I thought I would feel when I set out to complete this challenging task. This was a good, friendly, kitten. He was MY kitten and he was super adorable. He deserved a good home. Would he/she be a normal kind of special or like "Lenny with the rabbits" ala Mice and Men special? I had no idea, and I guess I didn't want to know.
I talked it over with some friends at dinner and they assured me I was worrying too much. Then I reassured myself some more and felt a little better. After all, plenty of handicapable people own pets and they're just fine, right? right???
not 24 hours later, I would approximate about 20 hours later, Bret gets ANOTHER call.
Apparently, after many confusing conversations in Japanese with several people, including our poor vet, this is what we understand had happened:
The special man had crashed his bicycle with my kitten in the basket on his way home. The kitten had escaped and the man had reported the incident to the vet. This is what "was reported" but I'm not entirely sure a Lenny situation didn't occur with the kitten running away as a result. The kitten was then found in a neighboring park by a group of children, and brought back to the vet's office.
We spoke to our vet just now and he assured us that after the multiple fiascos we no longer had to worry about the kitten and that he would take care of re-homing and everything for us.
So there you have it. I set out to do a good deed, numerous strange things transpired, and now I'm inconveniencing the nicest vet in Japan.
Still hoping for a good end to this sordid tale...
**just some disclaimers/clarifications/subtext here***
1. there are no humane societies in japan, just a couple of shelters run by non-japanese that are already overcrowded and under-resourced. They are also very far from where I live.
2. Shikoku, where I live in Japan, is kind of like the Arkansas of Japan. Too few people know/care/bother to spay and neuter and as a result, every spring and fall there are far too many kittens, though most of them are born outdoors or feral and do not like people.
3. In pet stores, people frequently pay crazy amounts of money, upwards of a thousand dollars to purchase pure bred varieties of cats
4. It is very difficult to catch kittens, so this was a very rare case
